In a typical hearing instrument (which may include hearing aids, personal communication ear buds, cell phone headsets, etc.), there is no means to identify the problem when the hearing instrument stops delivering sound into the ear canal. Users might suspect that the battery has died, that one of the transducers has become clogged with debris, or that the device is broken in some manner, however, there is usually no way to determine the cause of the problem without analyzing each element of the hearing instrument separately. A hearing aid, for example, is particularly vulnerable to malfunction resulting from earwax build-up in the outlet port of the hearing aid. However, a malfunction caused by earwax build-up may not be easily detectable by the hearing aid user.